How To Save A Life
by The Serial Dabbler
Summary: John Watson had never been the most luminous of people, he sees but he does not observe. So when things look bleak has he listened well enough to follow Sherlock's trail of breadcrumbs? An insight into John's journey as he muddles through the four stages of grief that come to fruition…and the one that doesn't.
_A/N: '_ _You've never been the most luminous of people, but as a conductor of light you are unbeatable' - Sherlock_

This was written as a pre-emption of sorts to series three of the BBC's Sherlock but was left to gather dust on my hard drive (I shamefully have not contributed any sort of story to this site in an age). I have since rediscovered this tale and thought to upload it.

I realise it probably lacks much of it's insight and prominent thought processes as it's now perhaps slightly outdated but couldn't bring myself to pop it away again to be forgotten.

John Watson had never been the most luminous of people, he sees but he does not observe. So when things look bleak has he listened well enough to follow Sherlock's trail of breadcrumbs? An insight into John's journey as he muddles through the four stages of grief that come to fruition…and the one that doesn't.

Rated T: As the majority of my tales are.

Disclaimer: I own nothing that bares any resemblance to anything remotely familiar.

How To Save A Life

 ** _Denial..._**

John found it odd at the time.

Molly had come to the flat a few days before Sherlock's body had been released, clutching a plastic bag and looking more uncomfortable than John could ever remember seeing her.

She'd come to return Sherlock's belongings.

He'd taken the bag and Molly had scuttled off soon after, offering a few horrendous words of comfort and the awkward promise to drop by again. The bag was light and that had been enough for him to turn it out on the kitchen table.

Sherlock's phone was missing.

It hadn't been on the body and the police hadn't found it at the scene, despite carrying out a very thorough sweep of the rooftop. John had briefly considered making a fuss; if he could just get the police interested…but Lestrade seemed eager to close the case and John wasn't entirely sure what good it would do him to push things.

…But a missing phone was so unlike Sherlock.

It was something John couldn't get out of his head.

He found a form of comfort in that particular mystery, on his darker days his mind would wander to the absent phone and a part of him would grasp at the childish hope that perhaps Sherlock still had it…that he'd managed to pull off a miracle.

' _Nobody could be that clever.'_

John never dared to text it…or call it, the fear of destroying his last hope frightening enough to stop him from trying. He liked the fantasy, as much as he hated to admit it. He preferred living with the possibility of what _could_ be rather than the reality of what would happen if he called.

' _You can't kill an idea, can you? Not once it's made a home.'_

He didn't delete the number but he did leave Baker Street that afternoon.

 ** _Anger…_**

A month and a half had passed and John still hadn't returned to the flat, living with Harry wasn't ideal but, at the moment, it was better than the alternative.

Every week, on a Sunday, without fail, John Watson would make his way to Sherlock's grave. The first three of his visits were short, quiet affairs where John stood rigid, at the foot of the grave, staring blankly at the headstone as if he didn't understand why he had come.

' _Don't be…dead. Would you do that, just for me? Just stop, just stop this…'_

The fourth visit changed everything.

Anger, he recognised the sensation, and an absent thought had struck him that it was rather nice to feel _something_. He'd been ready to leave, the visit just as tense as the pervious ones but before he'd managed two steps he'd turned back, fists clenched, pulse racing and blood beating loudly in his ears.

And suddenly he was shouting, obscenities he'd picked up in the army flying from his mouth without much regard for whoever may be listening.

He was lucky it was empty that day.

He'd paced in front the stone, arms thrown out at his sides, calling the detective anything he could lay his tongue on, and at the time he'd actually felt better for it.

It was much later, when he was sat alone in the guest room that his outburst really sunk in…and if he'd been half the man he used to be he would have laughed.

Shouting in a cemetery was certainly not appropriate.

That hadn't stopped him from visiting the following Sunday, and although he'd resolved to conduct himself with a little more dignity, he soon found himself pacing the grave, throwing insults and accusations, grateful, once again there was no one to hear.

His visits the following weeks were much the same.

Then came the day where, anger spent, he'd slumped down against the headstone, exhausted but feeling lighter than he had in weeks. He'd apologised, dull as usual, and found himself laughing, brief, rough and unfamiliar but laughing all the same.

Shouting in a cemetery was certainly not decent.

' _Who cares about decent.'_

He'd stopped seeing his therapist after that.

 ** _Bargaining…_**

Mycroft kept tabs on him, John knew that much, he could barely use an ATM without word getting back to the remaining Holmes brother as to where he'd been.

It made John wonder how much of Sherlock's behaviour had been staged for his brother's benefit.

If Mycroft expected him to be childish then Sherlock certainly wouldn't have disappointed him.

John had been gone from the flat for just over two months now, adjusting to an empty kitchen table, a tidy longue and the quiet evenings had proved too much for him.

For the moment at least.

He still visited Mrs Hudson, popping in some evenings on his way home from the surgery. He'd made a point not to go upstairs, and would sit stiffly at Mrs Hudson's kitchen table, ignoring the tea she'd popped in front of him as she tried to nudge him to take a look around the flat.

He'd make his excuses, hiding behind a warm, if somewhat tight smile and she'd move on to other things, eventually she'd simply given up on prodding him.

It had been on one of those particular evening visits, walking towards Baker Street after another…

' _Dull.'_

…long day at the surgery that a black car had trailed alongside him. The blackened window had rolled down and he'd known before he'd caught a glimpse inside the car who to expect.

"Get in the car, Doctor Watson."

He'd briefly thought about refusing but a part of him seemed to know this had been coming, and if he was honest with himself he'd been surprised it had taken so long.

' _Have you seen your brother's address book lately? Two names. Yours and mine. And Moriarty didn't get this stuff from me.'_

John had climbed into the car and sat stiffly in the seat opposite Mycroft, pleased to note that although dressed in his usual pristine suit the older man had looked tired.

The silence that had stretched between them as Mycroft read the last few months of his life in his…Hell, he didn't know, the wrinkles in his jacket (?) didn't last long and soon the elder Holmes had inclined his head in John's direction and taken out a small leather bound book from his breast pocket.

"I hear you're currently living with your sister."

"I am."

"And how, if you don't mind my asking, does that serve as an arrangement?"

"S'alright."

John hadn't feel like making it easy for the man. And if Mycroft could deal with Sherlock's childish outbursts then he could deal with John's teenage unwillingness. The set of the ex-soldier's shoulders and fixed expression had made it blatantly obvious that he'd rather not be having this conversation.

Mycroft had tried to be tactful after that, perhaps even delicate in his address and had turned over the questions he asked John quite thoroughly in his head before he'd asked them.

John was a mixture of relieved and disappointed when the meeting came to a noticeably uneventful end.

"Do you plan on returning to Baker Street?"

Mycroft's voice trickled through the open window as John tried to stamp down the urge to slam the door in the man's face.

Words ran messily through his head, tripping over each other as he attempted to put them in some kind of order. In truth, he had _a lot_ he wanted to say to the man who single-handedly made up the British Government, the only contact he'd really had with him since Sherlock's…fall; had been when he'd confronted him about the part he played in dragging his little brother into the hands of a master criminal. He wanted to yell, to shout, angry at the man who supposedly knew everything for being so out of touch he hadn't foreseen the corner he'd backed Sherlock into. He wanted to slam the door, ignore the question and never again have to deal with the guilt Mycroft felt over Sherlock.

He desperately wanted to believe that Mycroft could still be the man that supposedly knew everything, that if he agreed to return to the flat, Sherlock would be there waiting for him, with some sarcastic quip about how stupid he'd been to leave in the first place.

Perhaps the possibility existed that Mycroft had somehow known what Sherlock had been planning?

Stupid.

' _See this is what you were trying to tell me, isn't it? "Watch his back because I've made a mistake."_

"I could be wrong," he said flatly. "But I think that's none of your business."

He closed the door with far more care than he really felt he was capable of and made his way across the street.

The nightmares returned shortly after.

 ** _Depression…_**

Three months after Sherlock's death John found himself back in Baker Street. Living with Harry couldn't last forever and he'd felt it best to leave before he burnt anymore bridges.

Mrs Hudson had kept the flat in order for him, she'd hoped he would move back…and although living there _alone_ was difficult, John found he didn't have the heart to move out permanently.

221B Baker Street proved to be one of the more difficult hurdles to clear; he'd stayed away too long, he'd come to that conclusion weeks ago and still hadn't gone back. Now he was actually living there again he wished he'd had the nerve to go back earlier, when things had been fresher…it would have hurt, he was sure, but it wouldn't have re-opened wounds he'd thought had been patched up.

He practiced his smiles, and managed to pull them off quite convincingly when he needed to, but the hollowness he'd lived with since Sherlock's death felt fresher amongst the familiar walls of the flat. He wasn't… _coping_ ; quite as well as he should have been.

The thought sickened him, the fact that he knew but had neither the desire nor the strength to change it and that he'd stopped caring either way. The guilt had set in again after that…long nights where he'd wake up in a cold sweat, fisting his palms against his eyes in a desperate bid to shake the images that had settled there.

It never helped.

The guilt was worse than the emptiness, John decided blankly, in the early hours after a particularly rough night. When he'd been angry at Sherlock he'd been relieved, feeling _something_ had been… _nice_. But guilt wasn't the same as anger and John hadn't realised how fast it began to eat away at him.

' _You machine. Sod this. Sod this. You stay here if you want. On your own.'_

He tried to keep his mind off it, ordinary people were like that. Mundane. Boring. Easily distracted because they couldn't focus…couldn't think. By rights he should have been able to do it, concentrate on something outside the guilt for an hour or two. It was better during the day…working at the surgery wasn't the fast-paced, quick-thinking lifestyle he was used too but it kept his attention for the few hours he was there.

People came in and out, some sick, some…not so much. And he spent the day signing prescriptions, ordering blood tests and smiling like he still enjoyed his job.

The evenings were worse, all he had to go back to was an empty flat, full of memories he wasn't sure would ever be anything but painful to remember. Lestrade dropped by occasionally, and the two would sit quietly, sipping tea and trying desperately to ignore the awkwardness of it all. John was pleasant, a part of him knew Lestrade's hands were tied, but the less charitable part of his mind still blamed the detective for not stepping up when he should have.

Molly also came by, not often, but enough to let John know he hadn't been forgotten. She was nervous, skittish…and on the few occasions where she accepted his invitation to come in, she'd sat, fidgeting on the couch, rambling on about work and whatever else was on her mind. John knew she did it to fill the silence, it made Molly uncomfortable, but her eyes would dart around the room and when he did manage to catch her eye she'd stammer an apology and leave in a flurry of medical folders and brown coat tails.

Mrs Hudson tried to look after him, bringing him dinner most nights of the week, and when she'd realised he hadn't been eating it she'd started to eat hers with him. He didn't have the heart to tell her he wasn't hungry, and choked down enough to satisfy her. She made him tea, and brought him biscuits she knew he wouldn't eat…and still reminded him that she wasn't his housekeeper.

But as well-meant, as kind as their intentions were, they had their own lives to lead and as much as he appreciated what they were trying to do, the truth of it all was after each visit he was left alone in a flat he barely recognised anymore.

It was in _those_ moments John often wondered if perhaps he and Sherlock weren't quite as good for each other as people seemed to think. There were times when Sherlock wasn't bustling about in a whirlwind of thought and the flat was relatively quiet that he wonders now if perhaps they were a bit not good together.

' _And I said dangerous and here you are.'_

Sherlock's addiction to the game…the challenge spurred John's addiction to danger and if he was honest with himself it worked the other way around as well. It makes him think that maybe if he'd been more cautious, been less willing to jump in head first after the detective and paid a little more attention to Sherlock's obvious attempts to get rid of him at Barts…he might have stopped it all.

If he'd been lucky…very lucky!

' _No, friends protect people.'_

John turned to drink in the darkest hours, it had started off innocently enough, just a beer or two down the pub or while sitting alone in the flat, but had quietly morphed into something a little different. John had never understood the appeal of it before, he'd watched Harry live her life from the bottom of a bottle for years, but after a particularly bad day he'd drunk a little more than he usually would and his mind had gone blissfully blank, and the thoughts that plagued him dwindled into nothingness.

He couldn't remember much beyond that, only the warm buzz of pleasantly out of focus memories that had warded off his nightmares.

He'd woken up the next morning, disorientated and hazy and when he'd finally managed to drag himself out of bed and into the lounge he'd picked up his mobile and noticed a fresh set of scratches along the side.

' _You never see those marks on a sober man's phone; never see a drunk's without them.'_

He didn't drink again after that.

 ** _Acceptance…_**

The first four phrases came and went just as uneventfully as his life had before Sherlock Holmes.

The fifth step, the last stage…the final hurdle before he could begin to piece his life back together.

That phrase never came.

It bothered him.

Closure, his therapist would have called it, if he'd still been seeing her.

As a medical student he'd never been overly interested in psychology, he'd dabbled a little during his career but surgery had always been his forte. Regardless, he knew the buzz words, closure, acceptance, cognitive recognition...he was even vaguely aware of the bloody need for closure scale.

Though by all rights seeing Sherlock's name scrawled across a headstone should have been enough to put a stop to any ambiguity he might have been feeling.

It hadn't.

Something just didn't sit right with him.

…And he couldn't stop thinking about that stupid mobile phone.

It was on the off chance, when John happen to drop his phone while clumsily checking his texts and juggling two bags from Tesco that realisation first began to drawn on him.

' _The evidence was right under your nose John. As ever you see but you do not observe.'_

Sherlock had thrown his phone down.

It hadn't been found on his person because he hadn't been in possession of it. John remembered, with sudden clarity the image he'd been replaying in his mind for almost a year now. It should have been on the rooftop; he'd watched Sherlock toss it aside and as far as he could remember it hadn't fallen over the edge…and according to Lestrade it hadn't been found at the scene.

Had someone…picked it up before Lestrade and his team arrived?

Who would want Sherlock's phone?

It hadn't been much but that stray thought had made him think; really _think_ about what had happened on the rooftop. He'd replayed those moments countless times over the last year, but it had all been too raw and he'd been looking for someone to blame and winded up shouldering most of it himself.

He'd not been in the best state to think.

It was all guesswork, he didn't have the finest details all worked out in a neat little deduction. He wasn't Sherlock bloody Holmes. But as he sat, alone, for another unremarkable night in Baker Street, he tried his best to _observe_.

' _It's a trick. Just a magic trick.'_

A double-edge sword.

Sherlock hadn't meant his deductions.

' _I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything I could in order to impress you.'_

A lie. One he'd disregarded as such immediately and not thought anymore of because it was so obviously a lie. Sherlock had read his past in his face, his leg and his phone. He'd prattled on and on about a young man's gadget and the brother John didn't have.

' _Sister. There's always something.'_

If Sherlock had researched him he wouldn't have made such an obvious mistake.

' _Everybody wants to believe it. That's what makes it so clever. A lie that's preferable to the truth.'_

John wasn't anywhere near as good as Sherlock. He'd never been clever enough to play Moriarty's game…but now, now he wasn't caught between two brilliant minds.

' _That's why you're so upset. You can't even entertain the possibility that they might be right. You're afraid that you've been taken in as well'._

Sherlock had known.

' _That's what you do. You sell a big lie. Wrap it up in a truth to make it more palatable.'_

Sherlock had sold a lie, hadn't he? A bloody good one.

' _Turn around and walk back the way you came. Stop there.'_

He'd positioned him, ordered him about in a manner John was so familiar with that he hadn't thought anything might be off about it at the time. Sherlock had walked him back across the street…

' _Stay exactly where you are. Don't move. Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please will you do this for me?'_

Those were his words. His exact words; exactly as he'd said them.

' _It's odd, isn't it? Strange choice of words.'_

Strange choice of words. Direct, an odd thing to ask of a friend in your final moments…even by Sherlock's standards.

And then he'd thrown himself from the rooftop.

' _Keep your eyes fixed on me…'_

Except…John hadn't.

He'd watched Sherlock plummet towards the pavement but he'd disappeared behind another building and John had lost sight of him for one brief moment as he'd hastily made his way around the corner. The cyclist hadn't helped things either, being knocked down had disorientated him and in that immediate state of confusion, and the bleak haze that had settled over his life after that day John had glazed over many of the finer details.

He never actually saw Sherlock hit the pavement.

' _You saw what you expected to see because I told you.'_

It was…completely crazy, maybe he'd finally toppled over the edge? But the idea seared through his mind with such boundless intensity that he didn't really care if it sounded mental. He didn't know how he'd pulled it off, how Sherlock had managed to stage it all or who had played which part. Perhaps he was wrong? Perhaps he was desperate enough to see things that weren't there because it helped to keep the hope alive, fit better with what he wanted to believe in.

' _Once you've ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be true.'_

He reached for his phone.

 _ **You're not dead. Let's have dinner - John**_

He didn't have to wait long and although he'd been expecting it, he jumped a little at the chime.

 _ **Angelo's. Come if convenient – SH.**_

The air left John's lungs in a sudden rush, and if it hadn't been for the slight burning in his chest he wouldn't have realised he'd been holding his breath. He was on his feet almost instantly, pulling on his jacket as he headed for the door. His phone chimed again and John didn't bother to stop to check it, as he thundered down the stairwell.

 _ **If inconvenient come anyway – SH.**_

 _Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life_

 _And he begins to raise his voice  
You lower yours and grant him one last choice  
Drive until you lose the road  
Or break with the ones you've followed_

 _He will do one of two things  
He will admit to everything  
Or he'll say he's just not the same  
And you'll begin to wonder why you came_

Lyrics courtesy of The Fray.


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